chef interviews

Earlier this year, we held the third annual Food Republic Interview Lounge at the W Austin during the Austin Food & Wine Festival. Ever since, we've been featuring video excerpts of the sessions with host Richard Martin. Next up is Justin Yu of Oxheart in Houston, Texas.

“Right now we’re off to the races,” says George Mendes with the sound of clanging in the background. He’s standing at the Chelsea — or maybe we'll call it NoMad — construction site that will house his new, un-named restaurant scheduled to open later in the fall. It’s been long anticipated that Mendes, a Portuguese-American chef who just celebrated five years at his well-regarded Flatiron restaurant Aldea, would expand into a more casual style. We got all the details in an interview.

Chef John Tesar generated some dubious buzz on Thursday with his fiery Twitter response to Dallas Morning News critic Leslie Brenner's review of his latest restaurant Knife. With the benefit of having previously interviewed both Tesar and Brenner about their individual preferences and pet-peeves, we feel compelled to offer some perspective on the various motivations heading into this now-very-public food-world spat.

Mention “Japanese noodles” to the average person and chances are they’ll assume you’re talking about ramen. And we’re not hating on that. But buckwheat noodles (commonly known by their Japanese name, soba) are healthy, diverse and available at a variety of establishments – from the casual to the extravagant. We sat down with two soba masters to discuss all things buckwheat.

No discussion of New York City’s best sushi restaurants is complete without mention of Sushi Seki. Chef Seki recently sat down with us to talk sushi etiquette, differences between American and Japanese preferences and 3 a.m. fish munchies. Read on.

With Greek Orthodox Easter set for this Sunday, we chatted with chef Charles Bowman of Periyali, the Flatiron restaurant that essentially invented fine Greek dining in New York City when it opened in 1987. Who was the chef way back then, you ask? Why, Charles Bowman, of course. With the experience of having professionally cooked 27 Greek Easter feasts under his belt, Bowman educated us on the day’s culinary traditions.

For those of us who are car geeks, the New York International Auto Show is like the Aspen Food and Wine Festival. The annual showcase for the automotive world kicks off this Friday and runs through April 27 at the Javits Center in Manhattan. As we're getting amped up to see the latest Audis, Benzes and Cadillacs, we asked 5 chefs from around the US to tell us about their current rides, their dream cars and the best food-related road trips they've ever taken. Check it out.

Kevin Thornton was the first chef in Ireland to receive two Michelin stars at his restaurant Thornton's in the posh Fitzwilliam Hotel in the Stephen’s Green neighborhood of Dublin. When he lost one of his stars in 2006, the chef didn’t greet the slight with the consternation that other chefs might. It liberated him. Read on.